Key facts
- NASA has stopped efforts to locate the MAVEN spacecraft.
- MAVEN lost contact with Earth on December 6.
- The mission orbited Mars for 11 years.
- NASA is beginning activities to decommission the mission.
NASA has officially ended its search for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which went silent on December 6 of last year. The spacecraft was in excellent condition prior to a routine occultation, a passage behind Mars that was expected to last less than an hour. However, ground teams failed to re-establish communication when MAVEN was scheduled to regain contact with Earth. Despite efforts to restore a link and listen for faint signals, all attempts to save the mission were unsuccessful. NASA officials announced on Wednesday that they are ceasing all search efforts and beginning the process of decommissioning the mission. MAVEN had been orbiting Mars for 11 years, studying its upper atmosphere, and is over 200 million miles from Earth.